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Cab Hailing Service Uber Collected Just $9M of Fares During 15 Months In Boston
curtwoodward writes "Uber, the well-funded startup that hails cabs and black cars with a smartphone app, is a pretty slick way to book a ride. But how competitive is Uber with the traditional, highly regulated cab market? According to results from the startup's move into Boston, not very. Figures released in a court case show that, over 15 months, Uber processed just $9 million in gross fares (the drivers get most of that). Meanwhile, Boston's overall cab industry is pegged at doing about $250 million a year in fares. Despite the publicity, Uber still has a long way to go."
Uber's app makes the taxi process at lot nicer than anything the taxi process has come up with. With a taxi you're still usually calling and talking to a real person. Then maybe they dispatch a cab, and if you're lucky they find you and not someone else. More likely you stand there unsure about whether to keep trying to hail cabs or keep waiting for the one you called. With Uber, you have a map of all the cards in your area and an estimated arrival time. When you reserve one, you have a car devoted to picking you up; they won't stop for anyone else. You can watch them via gps so you know what's going on. The payment goes through your credit cards so there's no fiddling with change. Uber also has nicer cars and UberX costs about the same as a cab, although how sustainable that is is up for debate, since they may be skimping on insurance. The laws here are still being worked out. Of course, this is the situation in SF, where taxis suck. As you'd think, Uber isn't catching on as well in places where the taxi service is better.
I'd rather be able to speak to an experienced human on a 'phone when arranging a service than use another shitty automated middle man which can only deal with the simplest cases and which operates on volume rather than quality. There's always a significant cost to automation for the end user - it's just more profitable for the system's owner.
Outsourcing is logically less efficient, because someone else is always taking a cut of pure profit which they wouldn't if you provided a service in-house or cooperatively. Giving a middleman control of the initial sale (cf. Amazon, eBay) is one of the worst ways of permanently guaranteeing that a leech will make sure that you have to do an ever-increasing amount of work while they do very little new on your behalf. It's just not business sense.
I've noticed weird trend among the middle classes to feel entitled when it comes to eliciting the services of those who they perceive as lower down in the pecking order.
Being a cabby is obviously a stressful and fairly tedious job (and I speak only as an occasional rider). More importantly, it's a job, not servitude. Of course they're going to prefer to the more profitable routes, and there are going to be some providers more competent than others. And if you were sat for an hour waiting for a single cab company in one place in a city, you were doing it completely wrong.
First of all, you're right: it's a job. They should do the job; particularly, they should do the job their dispatcher promised they would do on their behalf. If they have an argument with the dispatcher, that should be their problem, not mine. They're the ones who decided to be affiliated with Luxor instead of Yellow Cab, or Yellow Cab instead of Luxor, or who the heck ever. They have their hack license, and with it, they can pretty much pick what cab company they work for.
Second, I have no problem tipping well when someone has to go out of their way to accommodate me. Sometimes I forget that there are non-Americans on this site, and that most of them don't believe in tipping because they figure the person providing the service is being paid anyway. A cabbie going out of their way like this in America is going to *expect* a tip, where a European cabbie would just say "to heck with it" and pick up the nearest fare, knowing that the extra effort isn't going to be rewarded.
Third, I forgot one of the best things about Uber and similar companies: because they bill by GPS start and end point, you can't be "long hauled". The practice of "long hauling" is where the cabbie takes you on a longer route than necessary to run up the meter. When using GPS start/end points, "long hauling" will cost the cabbie, not you, so it stops the practice rather dead in the water. This is an incredible benefit, if you end up needing a cab at a trade show or conference in an unfamiliar place, since that's when you are most likely to be "long hauled".
Fourth, as far as "doing it wrong", I suppose you are suggesting that I, and my one friend, and my other friend with the walker, go 10 blocks down to 19th street and just hail a passing cab. You have obviously never had a physical disability.